Grrl Power #113 – Secret meetings in smoky wood paneled rooms
We’ll leave the girls to their ogling for a bit. I’m not actually sure what the next comic will be – it’s a toss up between continuing this meeting or flashing back to the incident that Faulk is referring to. If I was putting out the comic 3x a week it would be a no brainer to cut to it relatively quickly but even if I can tell it in 3-4 pages that’s still a month long diversion. I’m tempted to just to jump to a new setting for a bit and also get a little insight into Max. I’ll probably stick a poll up on the facebook page early Monday so the comments don’t get mired with it. I’ll link to it here once I do.
Two links to entertain you this week. One is Servants of the Imperium, which is essentially Order of the Stick, only set in the Warhammer 40K universe. I’m on a WH40K novel kick at the moment so I tore through it. It’s amusing and a little self aware at times, so you don’t have to be an expert on WH40K lore to enjoy it but it wouldn’t hurt.
The other link is an apology for letting my vote incentive languish for so long (I appreciate the continued votes BTW) Instead of working on that I did a piece for Hatefarm’s Mistress Missy Fanart Contest and before I link to it I’ll warn you that it’s super NSFW, so be warned.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Very nice. Iam sure we will have a new Queen soon. ALL HAIL TEH QUEEN
Is panel 8 a “Simpsons” reference?
That was my interpretation, and it made me love this comic just a little bit more. :D
Indeed.
An incredibly old, kinda oblique one too. Bravo.
If the paper turns clear, it’s your window to weight gain
It is also, in fact, how one scientifically tests food for fat.
Rub the food on paper, and if it turns clear, it has fat. All the other tests we did in science class involved using particular solvents and chemicals, but to test foods for fat content, all you need is paper.
The Simpsons, of course, greatly exaggerated the effect.
Arianna seems disturbed that Maxima could see why she’d want Sydney on the team. Arianna must have too low an opinion of Max,
Or, an overly high opinion of her own cleverness.
Yea, mostly an accident.
Like the camels we blew up when they wandered into our impact zone during training.
We TOTALLY didn’t see them. Or shift half our machine gun or grenade fire their way.
Shouldn’t X Be on the who’s who to the side?
Of course not. He’s X, remember? ;-) It takes Syd’s true sight or at least Dabbler’s senses and high-powered logic to spot him.
Yup, I forgot to do something in the back end to make him show up.
Also I don’t see his/her invisibility being useful on something as simple as plush carpet, snow, grass, sand….yeah, you can see where this is going, true believers! That’s one of the major downfalls of invisibility, unless X can float an inch off the ground at all times, it can be struck null by something as simple as an inch of grass or the carpeting in your grandma’s sitting room.
Thank heaven for the obliviousness of most people, especially mooks. ;-)
Yes, but, you would have to be looking for footprints.
…. something in the back….
My mind first pictured a large windup key…then it went to the kinky sex toy.
Hey some of those prod you in the back and yeah you’ll pop out. :P
… -.- Anyone want to join me in the gutter?
So….”Arc-dark.”
Of course, Archon would **have to** have a Black Ops unit.
Seems more Intelligence / Counter Intelligence in my mind. This whole Branch smacks of Black Ops. With a nice shiny cover to keep the wrong people from asking too many unfortunate questions.
As opposed to “Arc After Dark” which is the division where they keep all their supers with pornagraphic powers.
That was the idea. Unfortunately, everyone except Dabbler soon left the section complaining of extreme squickiness.
Dark Archon!
Imma mind control your scvs and drones nao kkthxbi
That would be where The Filmer works.
Arc-Dark could always be supervillains.
Max is a smoker? Part of the reason smokers can keep smoking (other than addiction) is that the damage done prevents smokers from feeling the initial uncomfortable effects any more (I think).
That and wouldn’t here ‘superness’ prevent her from feeling any effects? Good or bad? But then again, Wolverine smokes and he has a healing factor.
Well it is a cigar. It comes from hanging out with General Officers. She probably drinks scotch as well. Unless General Faulk is a burboun drinker of course. =P
You don’t inhale a cigar, so it doesn’t really do the kind of damage a cigaret does.
Cigars are simply tastey.
Cigars also, usually, have less chemicals involved in making them. There are still plenty though. Least of all is pipe tobacco and it still results in cancer. unless you treat it like the Native American tribes did, as a sacrament instead of an addiction.
Oh yeah. Treating it as a sacrament makes it less cancerous. And none of them died of cancer before they invented x-rays and could find out what it was making them cough up a lung.
True. The smallpox and “lead poisoning” got to them before that.
They might also have built up a greater tolerance over generations. Like the tolerance non-asian and non-native americans have for alcohol.
VERY doubtful. If they didn’t get lung cancer from smoking, it would be most likely caused by not smoking very much or very often, or by there being so many other ways to die that they didn’t usually live long enough for any resulting tumors to become lethal.
“not smoking very much” You mean, only as a sacrament on special occasions? (I’m not sure how common it was.)
Plus they don’t add a lot of chemicals or “enhance” the tobacco like cigarette companies do.
Nicotine. Also used as a insectiside.
Yeah, nicotine’s got a high enough toxicity that the additives you find in modern cigarettes really don’t make all that much difference.
That tolerance for alcohol comes from an ensyme that the asian/indian people lacks more often than the kaukasians. Also, females lack it more often. It’s not really something built up, it’s basically random, with a statistical skewing in one direction or other.
Treating it as a sacrament didn’t make it less cancerous but it did make them use it a lot less. Less smoke equals less risk of cancer. Also, if you read the tales of the first explorers to reach them, they “puffed” the pipes, never drew the smoke into their lungs, just their mouths. That does still lead to cancer though, as my brother, former pipe smoker, can testify to.
Besides, the tobacco we use today is treated with chemicals to affect the taste and duration of burning. These include Arsenic, Benzene, Formaldehyde, etc. https://healthliteracy.worlded.org/docs/tobacco/Unit4/1whats_in.html However, even without those you would still have Nicotine, Tar and Carbon Monoxide, all known carcinogens.
Sorry if I sounded too flip about my original comment but hopefully the first paragraph of this one explains why I said that about treating it as a Sacrament,
As a native american myself, and being very familiar with my tribe’s history and culture, I can say that burning sage was far more common a thing than smoking tobacco. Sage is burned every morning to purify the dwelling, while tobacco was only used about one a month, and then not by most of the tribe, only those individuals involved in whatever ceremony was taking place.
Did cancer ever hit a native back in the days before europeans came to this continent? I don’t know, pretty sure no one does, or can, but the use of tobacco was very minimal.
Smokers today however, and I am one, have to contend with the fact that the Nicotine content in ALL brands of cigarettes has increased every year (an average of 1.6 percent increase per year), which does not happen when smoking unprocessed tobacco either.
On the Wolverine comment above, yes he smokes stogies, and has for a veeeerrrrrryyyyy long time, but his healing factor prevents any negative effects. When Magneto ripped the Adamantium out of is bones and nearly killed him his healing factor “burned out” for a while, first time he lit up afterwards he about coughed his lungs out right in front of Tabitha “Boomer” Smith (member of X-Force under Cyclops’s son Cable).
Nicotine is addictive, so by increasing the addictiveness of cigs you ensure your current clients have a harder time stopping smoking. It also reduces the ability to resist cocaine addiction according to a 2011 study. I’m surprised the ATF, or another US gov agency, doesn’t take action…
Just typifies the hypocrisy and idiocy of our (some) Drug War. Pernicious in letting the nose of Fascism get deep into our Republic. The ATFE goes bonkers over THC even though nicotine and alcohol are directly attributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. Once it ends Liberty just might survive here. But doubtful.
Plus the Billions of dollars cigarettes make for everyone involved in the whole merchandise stream not to mention the taxes and lobbyists. No the best way to eventually rid ourselves of this monkey is education. Making it illegal will drive it into the hands of organized crime just like alcohol during prohibition and “drugs” now.
Regarding nicotine and smoking causing cancer: True. The more you smoke, the higher risk.
Cigarettes vs Cigars/cigarillos: The paper in cigarettes contains plenty of unhealthy stuff, as does the filter that filters out the unhealthy tar from the smoke. Cigars uses the tobacco itself as a filter, less efficient, giving them a richer taste. Yes, tar is tasty, even if it makes your mouth taste like diesel on the morning after when combined with alcohol.
Cigars vs Pipes: Basically the same, but in a pipe you can use carbon-filters to get rid of some of the tar, and the stem acts as a deposit for it, as the cooling smoke goes up through it, tar is deposited inside it as pipe-oil, necessitating frequent cleaning. The cooling of the smoke also lets one drag harder, having a more efficient burn without getting too hot smoke in your mouth, giving less carbon monoxide.
Additions vs All natural tobacco: Additions usually don’t make it better, but while the nicotine is among the most deadly poisons in the world, and known to cause cancer in it’s own right, and some of the additives can be runner-up, the greatest cause of cancer from smoking is actually radiation-poisoning.
Tobacco, like many other plants, are VERY good at leaching out radioactive isotopes out of the ground, and by burning the leafs and inhaling the smoke, you get the low-intensity radiation to where it can possible do some damage, inside the body.
A sheathe of paper stops alfa-radiation, meaning that outside the body, it is basically harmless, only being able to damage the outhermost layer of the skin, which will soon be shed anyway. But inhale the radiating isotopes into the lungs and it can do bad things to you.
She probably dosn’t have to worry about cancer and emposema, so foggures why not.
Plus it pisses some people off and thats a plus.
Cigarettes do help people relax, particularly in stressful situations and that’s usually why people start smoking. I haven’t had a cigarette or cigar between my lips for nearly five years, but the ads and healthwarnings never helped me quit because they just used scare-tactics. None of them offered to provide another outlet for the stress I felt I was going through before I quit for my own reasons.
Cigars however are just a luxury. It’s like an expensive wine. You don’t buy it to get drunk, but to enjoy yourself. It’s not something you smoke on a regular basis to satisfy a need and the lack of constant exposure also reduces the damage. Unless you’re rich enough to afford buying them in droves.
Cigarettes only help you relax if you’re already addicted to nicotine; nicotine by itself is a stimulant.
Well, unless you’ve got ADHD and are self-medicating with nicotine. Remember, people like Sydney have weird reactions to stimulants.
Gee, Accidentally wreck a place of worship, and people NEVER let you forget it.
Hey, that orphanage attacked me first…it was self defense! (Yeah, I’m quoting Richard… https://www.lfgcomic.com/page/4 )
HAH!! Fucking love that comic! Richard is the funniest evil bastard to ever exist!
I beg to differ: Mike Warner is the funniest and most evil bastard to ever walk the halls of the internet.
https://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/04-remedial-adulthood/proposal/
Okay, gotta admit, pretty darn evil. I have to start reading this now, by the way.
Might as well start at the beginning then. Go read Roomies/It’s Walky before reading Shortpacked!. Shortpacked! is a continuation of the Roomies/It’s Walky story with a major shift in character focus.
Ye gods man, that’s an archive binge of epic proportions. You don’t just inflict that on an unsuspecting victim.
Yes you do.
You could have quoted Black Mage of 8 bits theater and some of his quotes are inter-exchangeable with Richard word for word — no plagiarism involved, who WOULDN’T make a “the orphanage attacked me first” joke using those characters long enough?
Now you have me wanting to see a conversation between Richard and Black mage.
It would be short.
Richard: Dude.
Black Mage: ‘sup.
Then they nod in respect for the evil that each other is becasue, classy evil never poaches on the others space. Each thinks we’re on the same level but, I just a bit better then you. I won’t prove it thought because when the dust dies down there has to be something left to rule.
I wonder how many people get the Simpsons reference. It’s a pritty old episode
The old ones have all the references most people will get.
I love the Sipmsons. I’ve seen them all and I have a freakishly good memory for TV/movies, but I didn’t get this one. Yeay for the comments pointing it out!
thought there was only one unknown ball now, truesight having been discovered
No, Truesight is a side effect of the Badgers orb
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/621
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/494
Her tele-presense ball gives her the truesight
Truesight is a secondary power of a known ball, the one that produces an image of her that she can see through.
So in there is possibility of each ball having secondary powers, maybe the tentacle dispels magic
My thought on the tenacal orb is that it’s feild can suround a object and lift things like jumbo jets.
My thoughts on tentacle powers are rather deeper in the gutters
Do you realize how hard it is to speak with a cigar hanging out of your mouth? Speaking from experience it’s quite hard, not at all like a cigarette. Try it, use a tube and try and talk (and be understood) it’s next to impossible. That is why people suck on it then take it away. And a quick flashback would really help, especially if you can shrink it into one comic.
But speaking with a cigar in your mouth adds significantly to your coolness factor if you can pull it off, as demonstrated by General Jack Ripper as he delivered his monologue about the communist invasion of our precious bodily fluids. :)
What I find amusing is that the “Super NSFW” art that he links to in the comics is the exact same picture openly displayed as a banner ad when I checked in for this week’s comic.
Yeah but if you click into the contest entries there’s wall to wall boobs and wangs and dildos.
. . . That’s like saying “Hey! Come on in, it’s wall-to-wall ice cream, giant spiders, and rusty used syringe needles!” The brain snaps from happy to horrified fast enough to cause whiplash! I could hear the *crack* as my head went “Ooooh there’sAAAWWWWDAMMIT!” which was of course followed by “Hm…decisions, decisions.” Yes, none can deny the alluring power of “ice cream”.
You know the meeting becomes really serious and the people involved are really getting down to business when the coats come off (General Faulk), the cigars are handed out, and the top brass more freely, casually and frankly talking to each other.
And I agree with X. The Arc-naming thing is going too far. Or at least there’s gotta be a better alternative to “Arc-Dark”.
How about “The Arc””, It is arc, but spelled dark?
It’s perfect
D’arc? As in Jeanne D’Arc?
ARc-Dark Probably gets shortened to DArc
Arc-Watch?
The Ark Night?
If nobody else will say it, I would vote for the diversion myself. Granted it will take longer but it will be a change of scene and break up the length of this story (pardon the expression) Arc.
I don’t believe that a flashback is necessary, especially since this is already one big flashback. I also prefer coming up with my own crazy reasons for why/how someone could “mostly accidentally” destroy a mosque.
I like it as a noodle incident, myself. We can see her razzed over it for years without ever getting what happened.
Yeah, noodle incidents are fun, the main reason I’m considering it is because it exposes a little of Max’s feminism which I talk about quite a bit but haven’t done a good job showing yet. Also it includes the lines “Woman! That building is older than your country!” and “Well then maybe it’s time for a remodel!” which I enjoy. :)
Double comic week? Otherwise I’d “vote” noodle incident.
You’ve basically told the story in your post here. Doing it again in long form seems a bit redundant.
It’s their fault they put that high value military target right between the mosque and the orphanage! :D
*Pictures her jumping out a C-130 ,chute failure,Mosque where she landed*
“That looks soft and crunchy!”
She can fly
Perhaps, but I imagine that neither the shovenistic (spelled wrong) taliban war lord nor his new expensive armored car were thusly enabled, and therefore had no means of altering their “unfortunate” and “entirely accidental” trajectory towards the exact opposite of inconveniantly-placed mosque, where-in yet another very shovenistic person or group of people had recently said some very disparaging things about her earlier that day. Clearly an unfortunate coincidence. Perhaps it was and Maxima decided not to let on that she probably could have stopped it. However, I got to say that I can’t really see Maxima destroying a sacred place of worship and devastating countless people in response to the words of one asshole. I would imagine it would have to be at least partly accidentall.
Crap, apparently I’m too dumb to use the spoiler thingy.
(I fixed it)
Ha, very much obliged good Sir!
chauvinistic
(I had to google it, I kept trying to throw an “E” in there somewhere.)
Where said moske had a large cache of mortor rounds and RPG ammo stored. That was why it was destroyed by accident. Mostly…
@Nestor. Clarification: Max can fly NOW.
The overall impression I get (which could be totally wrong) is that she was not born with powers, but somehow acquired them later on.
Plus, there is no certainty that Max’s range of powers appeared fully developed right from the start. Could have begun with only a few simple capabilities – which then evolved via training, experimentation, practice, experience and various-and-sundry Weird Events. That would be my guess, anyhow.
If Superman can develop flight over time, so can Maxima.
Yeah, he didn’t start flying untill he was around 18.
but was bench pressing the tractor at 5 I think.
In the original after the Kents rescued him from the rocket crash the jack failed (during a tire change) and baby Sups lifted the car off Pa Kent.
I meant he didn’t start flying until the 50s TV show
Except apparently it was sometime in the 40s on the radio? Whatever.
The origin used for Superman when DC first reset their universe after “The Crisis on Infinite Earths” gave him no powers until his late teens, his powers developed over time, kinda like on Smallville. but he got flight fairly early in the process, even before Heat Vision or X-Ray Vision. He also spent some time wandering the Earth after graduating High School, under an assumed name, before he became Superman.
Among the things he did, free-climbing Everest, without an air supply, studying philosophy with Buddist monks, and a number of other things.
i can’t be the only one that shuddered at “Arc-Dark”. seriously, if you’re going to have a theme naming thing… at least maybe Arc-Night?
Likely because one of the other branches is Arc-Light (and not Arc-Day).
Given his pause I guess X isn’t happy about the naming.
Arc-Light, the bland tassting beer substitute. No supers or metas here, just the plain people who handle the paperwork and accounting.
I’m sorry, but you’re thinking of the Arc-Ounting department. (Damn, do I owe Brad Guigar 20 bucks for using a pun as lame as his? Love the guy and his comic but god can he really let loose some groaners).
The superviser:
Mr A.Ccauntant
Arc-Ounting?
The Comptroler department dave. Payrolls and stuff like that.
Also, Arc-Night and Arc-Light sound too simular, might lead to some simple misunderstandings with major consequences.
which would be fun to watch
This might explain in part Max’s reaction when Sydney asked if they might have “arc-burgers”.
Head for the Double Arc-hes
Arc Dark rhymes. Sounds good, rolls off the tongue and is far easier than so many real govt and military acronyms. By far. Keep it DavidB, don’t knuckle under!!!
Arc-Dark was *meh* but what’s up with the fish sandwich reference? Or maybe I just don’t play with my food enough to understand.
Arc-Dark is hilarious. Not only does it sound like something out of a Dr. Suess book, it also sounds like something an inept cartoon dog would bark. It’s factually correct but completely inappropriate for what it’s supposed to be. Maybe X can eventually persuade for a name change that’s a bit more subtle.. like “Darc”.
As for the fish sandwich, I didn’t realize it was a Simpsons reference until I read the commentary. However, I could picture an excessively greasy hunk of fried fish that actually causes the paper wrapping to become transparent (and drippy).
Actually Bart takes a Krusty Burger Fish Sammich and rubs it against the wall of the restaurant and shows Flanders in the drive through (at least I think thats how it went, I saw that years ago).
I thought it was a chicken drumstick, which Homer wasn’t sure had enough fat to reach his goal weight (300lb to work from home). Bart rubbed it on the wall, causing the concrete(?) to go transparent. Then a hawk tries to take the drumstick, only to fly into the see-through wall.
You’ve got it between you.
Homer: “I dunno, fish sandwich… are you sure?” *Bart rubs it on the drywall* *bluebird crashes into now-clear wall*
Despite the much earlier reference to “Arc Swat… tentatively” which might indicate some possible leeway in final division naming, it sounds like X is more or less sadly resigned to the silly themed name for his designated division. Of course, given that his own preferred moniker is “forget-ably generic,” it’s not likely something that he cares enough about to work towards changing. Hey, everyone needs SOMEthing about their job to gripe about, right?
Not really sure why they are all worked up about destroying a Mosque. They keep getting used to store munitions and for the militants to use as a depot and base all the time. If they don’t treat it with the respect a “holy site” deserves, don’t see why anyone else should. Or maybe gets as much as they demonstrate to other faiths holy sites. Like the respect they show tossing grenades into churches, blowing up Buddhist statues, the list goes on and on…
I don’t think the intention of mentioning the mosque has anything to do with Maxima hating religions, though she obviously isn’t a fan. Because of who is bringing it up, it sounds more like the mosque wasn’t even the target of whatever the team/she was doing, and it was just “accidental” collateral damage. Certain building types make a bigger “splash” for PR problems than others. Destroyed a supermarket? Oops. Destroyed a “place of peace”? Uh-oh.
Also that religion is “extremely” touch about such things.
It’s a religion that’s got a fairly well deserved reputation for misogyny and she was in the military. During the 90s, female US military personnel who were stationed in Saudi Arabia were forced to comply with local dress codes. Put those to facts together and, as Udina says at one point in Mass Effect 2 “do the words ‘political s***storm’ mean anything to you?”
With Maxima, that’d be what i believe Jack Black has called “Tsunami S—Storm”!
That sounds like one of Dabbler’s spells for some reason…
Ahhh we’re back in the boardroom! WE NEVER LEFT.
Six years down the road we’re gonna cut to Sydney waking up from a daydream, STILL IN THE BOARDROOM. ;)
They’re actually in the General’s office now, which is a slightly different wood paneled room. :)
Er, that’s a bit of a discontinuity there. Nothing indicated they’d move or even why they’d have to. Shoo the prospect out with a keeper, open drawer, have a smoke. Why move?
On another note, maybe you could try this script writing thing for a bit, if you aren’t already and are just pulling our collective leg. Unless of course you’d rather just keep going like this.
The ballroom is minium security (like Dabbler’s pants) and they probably wanted to move to a more secure area to talk about Syd. The general’s office probably gets sweeped for listening devices, cameras and invisible people every hour, weither (never sure how to spell that) he’s in there or not.
Also Arianna may not smoke messing up her ballroom walls. (My parents stopped smoking over 10 years ago and we still sometimes get nic up when we wash walls.)
The cigar smoking IS a security sweep. To identify any invisible intruders you just fill the room up with smoke, then look for the people-shaped holes in it.
not to mention the damage tobacco smoke can do to sensitive electronics like circuit boards over time.
Also Nightshadow, I hope you brought an umbrella because that is one bad spell of whether.
Thank you. Thank you. I’m here till Thursday, try the veal.
Whether <– That's the one you want.
Weather
Whither
Whiter
Werther's
Sequential art is still challenging for me. When I’m trying to pack in a fair amount of dialog, I have to weigh what sort of decompression to show. Notice I didn’t include a panel of Max lighting her cigar, but only because I wasn’t sure how to show that and move the conversation forward at the same time. I could have fixed the discontinuity with the new setting with a panel on a previous page of the General saying “Let’s continue this meeting in my office.” Hopefully I’ll have the foresight to do that from now on.
“Ahhh we’re back in the boardroom!”
Don’t just go by the wood panelling; the furniture is different, the windows are different and, based on the positions of the people around the desk, I can count 3 separate corners of this room and they are all closer together – showing this room to be much smaller than the Ballroom.
This isn’t a “boardroom,” this is an office.
Nice Simpson’s reference on panel 8. LOL
This NEEDS to be a 3x a week comic. Once a week is not enough for me to get my grrlpower fix. lol
LOVE this comic…wish it was more :(
Your right. He needs minions.
Get some collage art students to intern with you and then they can do some of the tedious stuff that need your direct supervision.
I would love to have a colorist. Coloring takes a whole day.
Okay, then here’s how you do it. Make one of those simpler strips, like the Math motorboat strip, and use it as an audition piece for aspiring colorists. See if any of them can get close to finished strip quality in the required amount of time and are willing to work for whatever compensation you can afford.
If you can’t find anyone, then you tried, and you can tell the commenters here to STFU already. If you do find someone, then everyone wins, and you can go to updating every 6 days instead of every 7.
I tried to recreate your coloring technique. It took a lot of time and in the end didn’t come out right.
I flat color one thing at a time, like all the fleshtones, then when I’ve still got that selected, I take a fairly fat and hard line pen and draw in the shadows so it looks like a cell shaded image at that point. Then I take a blur tool along the edges. The reason I do it that way instead of using an airbrush to begin with is I can control the softness of the edge which is useful for muscles and wrinkles and whatnot. The thing is I use Paint Tool SAI because it has blur tool that actually blurs unlike Photoshop. Then I take a small opacity-but-not-size-sensitive brush and put in underlighting under nose, chins, what have you with a light blue usually. Recently I’ve been adding highlight colors as well, especially to faces. Then deselect all -> select all the blond hair on the page, repeat. So yeah it takes a while.
This is why I said I’d color backgrounds and such. He has a style unique enough that it makes it difficult to copy correctly. And the style I’ve been teaching myself over the past decade is just to different from his to use on the main characters. It’d be a lot less noticeable on backgrounds though.
Sounds like you need a sponsor, so what kind of a program would you like that could enhance your development? In short what is your wish list?
I like doing the cell-shaded look. I’ve tried doing a more blurred gradient shading on pieces, and it just comes out bad. I can’t use SAI well at all, but I’ve been using an old copy of Photoshop since highschool, and I think my favorite tool is the blur tool. I can go from cell-shaded-looking to smooth-shading in no time ^w^
Though I do envy your good eye for colors *nods*
I really like the idea of you hosting a sort of competition for people to try their hand at coloring your lineart to see if you can find anyone for the job. I never win coloring competitions, but I do love the practice (I can’t draw, but coloring is soooo fun. XP It’s the grown-up version of going crazy with the crayolas)
You do all your art on a computer right? Getting a colorist isn’t a problem then.
Just email them your art and they dont have to be in the same country to do it.
You have artist all from all over the world to choose from. With the internet as your tool, you can start publishing 3 to 5 times a week if you use the resources available to you.
This is true. If you go on oDesk or some other contract work website, you can usually find large numbers of very talented artists who will work for frighteningly low wages. Massive differences in the cost of living provide opportunities for both parties.
Outsourcing isn’t just for corporate fat-cats anymore.
Look up some Korean artists. Have You seen some of the webcomics they have been doing lately?
Look up Song on the Cloud or Orange Marmelade. The art is AWSOME.
Getting a colorist might not be that hard, but being able to rely on someone to give up part of their weekend consistently to work on a comic that isn’t theirs for maybe $10 a week is the bit I’m less confident about. It’s worth investigating but I’ll have to get a few extra comics in the buffer before I’d try it.
If I was doing the comic full time and had a colorist I could see 3 pages a week. 5 is pushing it. Remember that Girl Genius has a colorist and they still only manage 3 pages a week. Obviously if I was doing it full time I’d get to spend a little more time on the penciling, so it wouldn’t scale directly.
5 times a week…
A man can dream, can’t he?
Seriously, I realy didn’t think 5 times a week would work out for you because you actualy have a life. Wife, regular job, stuff like that.
Eh, the mosque incident is probably funnier if it’s never fully explained.
Concur. References to past events provide plenty of background and humor simply by the characters’ responses to them without having to invest lots of time and effort actually showing them.
It’d be funnier still to have Syd imagine how it happened, than showing it. LOL
Actually, I’d say that really is the best option I’ve heard so far. Kind of like Maxima imagining Sydney’s aggravated assault of the guy who tried to mug her, or everyone in the ballroom’s reaction to the contents of the poster tube.
I’d comment on Arc-Dark, but I wouldn’t want to get off onto a D’Arc Tangent…
Yes, it’s a good idea to avoid going too far off into the D’Arc.
You might get eaten by a grue.
Really, a Foglio reference … and a REALLY old one at that. Me, I prefer Buck Gadot
“This is one of the 37 registered signals of surrender … True. It’s also the opening stance for Hoffman handball … What? … My serve.”
Goodness, someone actually recognized it? Heh.
Actually at the moment I favor Girl Genius, but Buck was always cool.
I say continue with the meeting.
If you want to do a flashback, just make it a Thursday comic where you don’t have to make the art so terrific and just tell the story.
I don’t do Facebook. I won’t be able to vote there. So I’m adding to this comment.
Noodle incident! Refer to it once a year, giving out just a little more infomation each time. After 15 years (our time, maybe 3 of their’s) (yes I will come back to read every week until then) we then have the whole story and then you can tell it in one flashback.
I agree with the above poster about the mosque thing remaining a Noodle Incident.
I didn’t link to the tvtropes page because I’m not a complete bastard.
I just saw your submision to Hate farm.
HOLY @%$#!!!!
It sort of reminded me of your Girls With Slingshots submision.
You have a sick and twisted sense of humor. Good work.
Now try to top it.
What can I say I think dildos are funny. :)
Especially the soft kind that are floppy.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286152/
Certain parts of this movie might interest you then. There’s at least one scene involving a giant floppy dildo that’s said to weigh 20pounds. Also It’s my absolute favourite bank heist movie.
The only proper response to the last one would be:
“Would it make you feel better if i go torch a church for balance?”
Here’s an experiment to try: take a quran, a bible, a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and warp all three up together in an American flag – then toss the whole lot into a fire.
Who do you think will be the first to call for your death?
Nobody’s going to benefit from Dave spending the next month poking a hornets’ nest.
Minus the copy of Origin of Species, I imagine it would be a matter of cell service
Destroy one little mosque, blow up one little planet, squash a whole civilization of sentient ants and people will never let you live it down, it’s so frustrating!
To be fair, one of the sentient ant queens survived and waited several centuries to give birth to her race again.
Is this an Ender’s World reference I see?
Or Mass Effect.
Mine was an Ender’s world reference (Seriously. Centuries pass and his name is still bastardized because he was tricked into almost committing genocide). I’m not sure about Artemisia’s post.
Minor nit, but in panel 4 Zoeng should really have said ‘She has more powers than anyone on the team’, not ‘She has more powers than anyone
elseon the team’Really? It reads fine both ways to me, but I’m not a grammar… expert… thingy.
It’s just that by using ‘anyone else’ on the team, it’s declaring her presence on the team already.
Yes, that was what I was reacting to. Though of course Zoeng could simply be misspeaking.
Just remember: You don’t have to have perfect grammar. You only need to have better grammar than your characters do. ;)
It would be extremely difficult for the opposite to be true.
Yes it is. But not impossible, and it can drive a writer crazy…
Exactly my thoughts. Every word, phrase, clause, sentence, etc, etc, would have to be checked and rechecked.
Despite what most language-teachers\linguists would like us to think, grammar is a description of a language, not a prescription. As the language changes, so does the grammar, not the other way around.
And if you don’t belive that, look at the english language 2 or 3 hundred years ago. Hell, look back eighty years ago.
It seems as though it’s being taken as read even at this stage that she’ll be on the team, given the extent of her powers. So while it might be technically incorrect to use “anyone else” before the job offer’s been accepted, it’s likely to be a technicality at best.
I know you’ll be getting to it eventually, but what I really want to see is some action. Instead of introducing every character in a controlled setting, maybe some characters should be left for being introduced int he middle of combat.
*Looks at the insignia in panel 7. So X wants her on the team mainly so that they won’t have her doing tongue-fu etc. on one of their covert operations?
And thus the super power was named…
I wonder if there is an orb of swearing.
I think that first one goes along with Sydney’s natural capacity for panicked mauling and flail-foo. That and the swearing seem to both be innate attributes and/or trained skills, not to mention the hyper-activity ans slightly-more-than-healthy amount of crazy and tolerance to spicy food. Let’s face it, the girl was a monster to begin with, the orbs just made her scarier!
This is, of course, my own opinion, but I just don’t think women look good with cigars. Honestly, Maxima looks really seilly with that cigar, and even less tough than she normally looks.
She’s smoking them partially because she thinks it’s a non-feminine looking thing to do. So I guess mission accomplished. :)
There was one movir I saw once where the badass ate carrots.
Shoot Em’ Up. Fun movie, not remotely possible, or even plausible, and just plain wrong a couple times (firefight during sex springs to mind), but incredibly entertaining IMO.
I thought the firefight during sex was only in Drive Angry.
I realy didn’t remember much of Shoot Em Up except a few of the early gunfights and the ending.
Nah the firefight during sex was done much better on Shoot Em’ Up than Drive Angry, it was around the middle of the movie, not long after Clive Owen’s character (who I like to call “Goddammit Smith”) picked up the lactating hooker character to feed the baby. You should watch it again sometime, its worth it.
I think it makes her look badass(er). Then again I might be subconsciously infuenced by Integra (Hellsing).
I say She looks plenty badass. And I’ve seen plenty of guys smoke cigars to look badass only to have so much fail.
Smoking is really bad for you, but I don’t think it’s a problem for Maxima since she appears to be made out of metal :)
Also, the real reason Arianna wants Sydney on the team is to annoy Maxima! :D
Well true, but like that one guy said during the beginning of the comic, that shit’s gonna roll both ways. Don’t believe me? I direct you to the Badgers incident.
Is that a typo where he says ‘we don’t even know what two of those orbs do?’ since we just learned that one gives truesight? Shouldn’t it be ‘we don’t even know what one of those orbs does?’ Flight, shielding, pew-pew, telepresence, pseudopd, truesight, and ???
The telepresence orb is what gives Sydney the true-sight.
Thinking of it as a sensor/communications orb may help define it better. When Sydney’s using the telepresence orb, it has to feed information back to her on what can be seen/heard/detected from the point where her image is being projected. It’s just that there is enough difference to the mechanics of those senses that Dabbler and X didn’t fool her.
Now I’m waiting to find out about the Archon division (possibly devoted to fighting giant insects) called Arc-Vark
After looking at your submission, it reminded me of a Japanese festival I recently learned about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamara_Matsuri
I still very much want to see what the Soviets had/have (who knows? This is an alternate universe) cooking in the way of Supers.
Be careful what you wish for. The might have been seen as “dangerous proponents of the cult of the individual” and purged. Or else taken as the ultimate vindication of Lysenkoism, which could lead either to being lionised in the press or being whisked away to a secret base near Семипала́тинск (in Казахская ССР, and also their main nuclear weapons test site) for ‘study’ depending on the extent of one’s loyalty to the Party.
He’s already said that this is mostly like our world except for the supers. So no Soviets. Isn’t Putin bad enough for the Russians?
“… but you destroy just one mosque…”
Ok, as a military guy, the “oh destroyer of mosques” quip and the following reaction put only one thought in my mind – this I HAVE GOT to hear! :)
Dark arc, light arc, mega arc, quantum arc, string arc, mag arc the list goes on and on. Arc Burgers! Arc Frizzes! Yes I’m evil.
Love your comic Dave B
Arc beers: Arc brew, Arc brew lite, Arc brew dark, Arc pale ale, etc.
Arc t-shirts, hoodies, ball caps, tote bags, fanny packs ( probably already available from Arianna)
Arc recipe books ( abridged and unabridged versions)
anyone else?
Toy memrobilia like action figures.
Harem, collect them all!
Halo with flail-fu action.
Max with “Bored Now” action.
Dabbler plushies?
Dabbler body pillows.
NNNNNOOOOOO MAH PLUSHIEEE!
Syd’s hot sauce.
oh gawd no….
In picturing all the replies with the warning labels that should go on it, I rememberd the bottles she tried earlier.
Now I must use some bleach to clean my brain of the image of Syd with the strap on and riding crop as the picture on the ad campaign.
Be kind to your mind, substitute one of Dabbler’s glamors, as painted by a really skilled artist, for Sydney in that image, it’ll suddenly become MUCH more tolerable.
Just looked at the hot sauce page again. Still gives me a chuckle to see the lables.
Guarented to make you feel like the prettiest boy in prison.
Arc Weld for the machine shop?